


to love what is mortal

by draculard



Series: Comfortween [22]
Category: Star Wars Legends: Outbound Flight - Timothy Zahn, Star Wars: Thrawn Ascendancy Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, Prompt: Stomach Ache, Textual Ghosts, Thrawn and Thrass's Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:47:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27275170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: Vurawn can't go to school today, he says.
Relationships: Thrass | Mitth'ras'safis & Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo
Series: Comfortween [22]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946224
Comments: 2
Kudos: 43
Collections: Comfortween 2020





	to love what is mortal

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Mary Oliver's "In Blackwater Woods":
> 
> _To live in this world_
> 
> _you must be able  
>  to do three things:  
> to love what is mortal;  
> to hold it_
> 
> _against your bones knowing  
>  your own life depends on it;  
> and, when the time comes to let it  
> go,  
> to let it go. ___

“You can’t,” said Vurass simply.

In response, the seven-year-old lying in their shared bed only pulled the covers up to hide his face, leaving a tuft of blue-black hair visible above the hem. 

“You _can’t_ ,” said Vurass more firmly. He grabbed the edge of the blanket and tugged it down, revealing the scowl on Vurawn’s face.

“I can,” he said, with a calm confidence that was absolutely maddening. Sometimes, Vurass swore, Vurawn sounded more confident and in-control than any adult. “Teacher said we don’t have school today.”

“ _The_ teacher said we don’t have school today,” Vurass corrected automatically — and then huffed when Vurawn smiled and nodded, as if simply correcting him meant that Vurass agreed with the words themselves. “And you _know_ it’s _‘the_ teacher.’ Don’t try to manipulate me, Vurawn. You always talk like a baby when you’re trying to trick me.”

Vurawn’s eyes widened in an almost convincing look of innocence and outrage. With a sigh, Vurass grabbed his questis — a hulking, out-of-date model with a cracked screen and a faulty battery — and checked the time. “It’s _my_ responsibility to get you to school now,” he said with as much patience as he could muster. “You wouldn’t want me to disappoint Mother and Father, would you? Or sully their good name by allowing you to become a truant?”

Gravely, Vurawn sat up and said, “Of course, if you _did_ disappoint them, I would support you entirely through the ritualistic rending of the flesh. As your brother, it’s only right.”

“The rending of the flesh?” Vurass repeated, baffled. “What the hell have you been reading?”

“Textbooks,” said Vurawn simply. “The history and traditions of Rentor in its early colonial days. You see, I’m actually very much ahead in my studies, so one day isn’t going to harm me.” He gave Vurass his most charming smile, showing off the gap where he’d recently lost his front tooth (mentally, Vurass cursed his classmate, Stel’tha’mas, who had been the first to tell Vurawn his baby teeth were cute and had thus opened up a whole new opportunity for manipulation). “I learned good study habits from watching you,” Vurawn continued earnestly.

“Good study habits are meaningless without a teacher to guide you,” said Vurass. “If you had a teacher helping you with those textbooks, you’d know we haven’t done a flesh-rending ceremony in hundreds of years.”

“They’re seeing a resurgence in the outer colonies,” Vurawn said. “And some more religious subcommunities of Rentor have always subscribed to ancient traditions. We never really know what goes on behind closed doors, do we?”

He kept his eyes fixed solemnly on Vurass’s face as he spoke, but his tiny hands crept up slowly, trying to steal the questis away while his brother was distracted. Vurass snatched it out of Vurawn’s reach. 

“I need this for school,” he snapped.

“You can stay home, too,” said Vurawn, his scowl returning with a vengeance as he slumped back down on the bed. He kicked out spitefully at Vurass, but his foot got caught in the blankets and he gave up. “We all get sick days.”

“For when we’re _sick_ , yes. You need to get dressed,” said Vurass threateningly, refusing to listen to Vurawn’s reasoning. “Or else I’ll drag you to school in your nightshirt.”

Vurawn crossed his arms over his nightshirt, which was really just one of Father’s old work shirts. “You wouldn’t,” he said, with that same irritating confidence from earlier. He hugged the worn fabric to his chest. “Mother would be _so_ embarrassed. And Father would kill you.”

Vurass’s jaw tightened against his will. He felt his face twitching into an ugly scowl.

“Yes, well,” he said bitterly, trying and failing to bite his tongue, “they’re both dead, anyway. So what does it matter if I disappoint or embarrass them? Hm?”

He glowered down at Vurawn, daring him to respond. For a long moment, his little brother said nothing, but he avoided Vurass’s eyes, looking suddenly diminished and flushed. Just as Vurass’s temper was fading and a sense of regret was kicking in, Vurawn eased himself back down on the mattress with a sort of finicky grace — as if being graceful and slow might somehow mask the way his face was working. He pulled the blankets over his head and curled into a little ball.

“Vurawn…” said Vurass pleadingly as the guilt turned into horror at what he’d said. He tugged at the blankets, but Vurawn’s grip tightened on them ferociously, refusing to let Vurass see him.

“Go away,” came Vurawn’s voice, muffled and small. His precocious eloquence from earlier was gone; his words were laced with anger and desperation, and he sounded every inch the seven-year-old he was. “I can’t go to school,” he said. “I have a stomach ache.”

Vurass bit his lip. He really, _really_ shouldn’t have said anything about their parents. There was a harsh lump in his throat that wouldn’t go away no matter how hard he swallowed, and he could only imagine what Vurawn was going through beneath the blankets. 

Hesitating, he glanced down at his questis again, once more noting the time. They really _would_ be late, even if he made good on his promise to drag Vurawn to school in his nightshirt. And tardiness always meant a demerit, whereas sick days…

He glanced sideways, at the traditional Rentorian altar where their parents’ photos were displayed. Ever since the funeral ceremony, they’d taken to talking about their parents in cheerful, sanitized terms. It wasn’t something they planned to do or discussed; it was just something that happened naturally. When the topic came up, they acted as though Mother and Father had simply gone on a long trip, not that they were … well. Vurass shook his head. So far, this method had almost seemed to work. Vurass always waited to cry until he knew for certain that Vurawn was asleep, and Vurawn, he thought, hadn’t cried at all, not since the day they died.

Vurawn had been there that day, waiting outside on the docks when the ice shelf collapsed. Up until only a week before, it was Vurass’s job to walk him home after school, but that week he’d joined the Junior Syndicure, and he’d started staying late for practice, and so Vurawn had taken to walking the short distance to the docks and waiting there for Mother and Father’s shifts to end. He liked to read and study in the snow, he said; the cold air kept his mind sharp.

So he’d seen the collapse. And he’d seen Mother’s body, if not Father’s. By the time Vurass heard the news and raced to the docks, he’d found Vurawn balanced on the hip of a neighbor, watching the rescue efforts with his hands curled into fists in the woman’s tunic, twisting around at the waist so he wouldn’t miss a thing. His eyes had been defiantly dry by then, but there had been tear tracks on his cheeks that nobody had bothered to wipe away.

He'd refused to skip school the next day, Vurass remembered. Vurawn had allowed his older brother to walk him there, holding his hand tightly but calmly the entire way, and he hadn’t complained when Vurass left to handle the funeral matters as best he could. 

He hadn’t missed school once.

With a heavy sigh, Vurass sat down on the thick round cushion they called a bed. He jostled Vurawn deliberately, gently, letting his leg bounce off Vurawn’s hip as he sat. This time, instead of trying to pull the blankets away, he let his hand rest on Vurawn’s shoulder.

He could feel him shaking beneath the blankets. He could feel him taking small, shallow breaths, struggling to stay quiet.

“Alright,” said Vurass, trying to keep his voice neutral so Vurawn wouldn’t be embarrassed. There was a delicate balance to be found whenever Vurawn cried; he knew intellectually that he was a child, but he wanted to be treated like an adult, and he seemed determined to view each sporadic bout of tears as the irrepressible physical response of a seven-year-old to stress. But taking this logical view of things made him no less distressed when he inevitably lost control and started sobbing over something stupid — the lights being too bright, or his graphmarkers and books being arranged wrong, or the noise from the furnace getting too loud — and it certainly didn’t help him when there were other people around, even family members, to see it happen. 

Now, when he had something legitimate to cry about, the embarrassment would only be worse. Vurass knew from experience — from when their sister was taken. With a deep breath, he patted Vurawn on the shoulder and said, “I guess I’ll stay home, too, then.”

A long silence greeted his words. He heard a quiet sniff and saw the blankets rustle somewhat as Vurawn raised his hands beneath it to wipe his eyes.

“You’re staying?” he asked, his voice thick and still muffled.

“I might as well,” said Vurass casually. “I’ve got a stomach ache, too.”

The pause was shorter this time. He glanced away as Vurawn wiggled out from beneath the blankets, giving his little brother time to thoroughly wipe away his tears. But only a second later, he felt small, warm fingers close around his sleeve, pulling insistently.

“Lie down?” said Vurawn, making no effort to hide the rawness of his voice.

Vurass glanced back at him, but Vurawn had already turned away, scooting away from the middle of the bed. Fully dressed for school, Vurass reclaimed his spot on the bed and let Vurawn settle the blankets over both of them. He lay on his back, his arms akimbo, knowing instinctively that it would be pointless to get comfortable just yet — and he was right, because no sooner had the blankets settled than Vurawn climbed on top of him the same way he had as a toddler, burying his face in Vurass’s shoulder and clutching tightly at the material over his chest.

Quietly, Vurass wrapped his arms around him. Their breathing patterns synced up automatically, the way they always had, and Vurawn was still small enough compared to his twelve-year-old brother that his weight was more of a comfort than a burden. Vurawn burrowed in, wiping his tears on Vurass’s tunic, and Vurass couldn’t bring himself to care.

He only hugged Vurawn a little tighter, until both of them drifted back to sleep.


End file.
